We took a look around several Philadelphia area company web sites. To be completely honest, we were very disappointed in the lack of adherence to modern web production techniques. Here’s the top ten:

SEPTA (www.septa.org)
The mass transit organization serving Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties is currently using an old table-based site that doesn’t conform to any web standards. Their site is littered with font tags, missing alt attributes, inline styles, and empty p tags for spacing. As for accessibility, SEPTA provides no support for users with disabilities via their web site, although SEPTA is required to provide transportation assistance to people with disabilities within their service areas.

SEPTA does do a great job at providing people with useful maps, schedules, travel alerts, and up to the minute train status.

Throughout the entire family of SEPTA web sites the designs are inconsistent, hard to use, and worst of all – non-compliant with web standards.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance and information architecture.

Philadelphia International Airport (www.phl.org)
Where to begin… Table-based, invalid DOC-TYPE, font tags, and inline styles make up this debacle of a web site whose only redeeming feature is that the site does have an ADA compliant text version of the site – but even that version didn’t provide a valid DOC-TYPE or a language attribute. The information architecture of the web site is disconcerting and the presentation of content is compact and poorly organized. Although Philadelphia International Airport’s web site doesn’t comply with web standards, the site does offer a lot of useful content. Travel preparation and flight information is readily available and accurate. Terminal and parking maps provide visitors with helpful tools to find there way around the airport. They also have a section devoted to Art & Exhibitions that provide information about the artists, the exhibits, and detailed pictures of the work.

With these recent expansions and upgrades made at the Philadelphia International Airport I would expect an upgrade to their web site. By developing a web standards based web site, they could offer more user-friendly ways to deliver their important and highly desirable content.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, information architecture, standards-compliant content management system, more intuitive search.

Commerce Bank (www.commerceonline.com)
The beloved, open every day Commerce Bank is a favorite among many in the area. With convenient locations, a wide-array of products & services, and amazing hours you would think they could do no wrong. Well, they have. It’s the typical lineup of wrong doings: Table-based layout, missing DOC-TYPE, use of deprecated elements, animated GIF’s, scrolling stock ticker and news, empty/missing alt attributes; I could go on and on. On some computers, the stock ticker actually crashes the browser and causes the screen to flicker. I didn’t even bother validating. Their online banking web site is a whole other mess of web standards non-compliance. At the very least you would hope that the web site would work cross-browser, but alas, it does not. Using their online banking web site in Firefox looks like 52 card pick-up, with elements aligning randomly. That being said, Commerce Bank does an amazing job with the brick & mortar establishments. I wouldn’t bank anywhere else.

Always expanding and loved by all of their customers we can only hope Commerce Bank comes to their senses and undergoes a complete overhaul of their web sites.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Tower Investments (www.towerdev.com)
These urban developers have designed some amazing properties and turned troubled neighborhoods into hip urban communities with retail shopping and luxurious living spaces. But although their properties are chic and trendy, their web site is outdated and non-compliant. Flash based web sites, like Tower Investments, are impossible to use for disabled users, therefore excluding them as potential clients. By adopting web standards and Section 508 recommendations you open up your site to all visitors, instead of just sighted visitors. Flash is an amazing tool, and has its place on the web, just not as a primary tool for web site development.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Amoroso’s (www.amorosobaking.com)
The beloved baking company, famous for fresh hoagie rolls, delivers a stale web site. The table-based web site fails at delivering standards-compliant content by using inline styles, tables for non-tabular data, and the ever present spacer.gif. The web site also uses a fluid or 100% wide layout, which is not necessary when the content being presented would easily fit in a fixed width layout for 800×600 screen resolution. Although when the site is resized for 800×600 screen resolution the browser scroll bars are activated due to the content area being too large for the resolution size. Also, fixed width font sizes are used throughout the site and don’t allow text scaling in certain browsers, making it difficult to read. Overall, Amoroso’s web site fails at meeting almost every web standard, but where their web site lacks, their products do not. Amoroso’s is still Philadelphia’s favorite roll, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Rohm and Haas (www.rohmhaas.com)
The international specialty chemical producer, Rohm and Haas, breaks all the Web Standard rules. By combining table-based layouts with invalid CSS, missing DOC-TYPES, drop-down menu’s that break Section 508 accessibility standards, and others, they offer pages that possible investors and/or clients are not able to access. Their imagery and text color combinations also pose many problems with visitors who are color blind and/or have other vision problems. It amazes me that a global company of this size doesn’t deliver standards-compliant content, when their reach extends to all corners of the world.

That being said, the imagery and content on the site still delivers a consistent message and provide tons of important information to the end user.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Multiple Language Support.

QVC (www.qvc.com)
The television shopping channel, QVC, has an ecommerce web site that generated $1.09 billion in 2006 and they are ranked #14 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. Their total revenue for 2006 was $7.07 billion with online sales accounting for a little more than 15.4% of their total revenue. The web site is currently a table-based non-compliant web site which is a Section 508 nightmare. From missing alt attributes to blue text on a blue background color the site is in desperate need of an overhaul. If the site were standards-compliant this mega online retailer would be able to open up their online business to many more customers; then couple that with the addition of a multiple-language support system and this site’s international use would exponentially boost.

Quality, Value, Convenience. QVC definitely delivers upon their name with their web site, even if it is lacking web standards. The product imagery is presented gracefully and the site is constantly being updated with new and featured products which shows that QVC takes the time to deliver what they stand for.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Multiple Language Support.

M.A.B. Paints (www.mabpaints.com)
Founded over 100 years ago in South Philadelphia, this family business has been a favorite among professionals for many years. Their slogan, “On Time As Promised, Or We Pay,” defines their loyalty to their customers. By supplying hundreds of stores throughout the country, M.A.B. Paints has a responsibility to their customer base to provide standards-compliant content on their web site. Currently, their site is using my all-time favorite gaff, frames. Needless to say, there’s a long list of problems with the web site. M.A.B. offers a retailer portal, most likely to provide their retailers with up-to-date inventory, pricing, and order tracking. I can only hope that their retailer portal does a better job at providing standards-compliant content, but I have my doubts.

Being in business over 100 years proves the strength of M.A.B.’s brand recognition and strength. In addition to their strong values and core principles, I believe that M.A.B could exponentially increase their business by offering a more compliant web site.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing.

PhillyCarShare (www.phillycarshare.org)
I am a huge advocate for car sharing and cleaner emissions for automobiles and I tip my hat to this great organization and commend them on their efforts thus far, but their web site is far from par. I am aware of the funding issues when it comes to non-profits and funding non-program initiatives but developing a standards-compliant web site isn’t something that costs extra. The basic standards-compliant web site can even be developed, in some cases, faster than a non-compliant, table-based web site. Needless to say, PhillyCarShare’s web site could benefit enormously with a web standards re-design.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Philadelphia Management (www.philadelphiamanagement.com)
If you’ve lived in Philadelphia for more than a year you’ve probably come across this name. Philadelphia Management manages more than 4,600 residential and countless commercial properties, arguably making them the largest property management company in Philadelphia. Their web site makes the cut by breaking all the fundamental rules of web standards. Missing DOC-TYPE’s, table-based design, deprecated elements, and one of my favorites - spacer.gif. They, like many other sites mentioned, also use a fluid or 100% width layout, which is not necessary for their content.

They do a tremendous job, however, of providing detailed property information for their visitors as well as providing detailed photos of the property. Many property management companies do not take the time to provide this level of information for their visitors. With such a wide array of possible visitors Philadelphia Management needs to bring their web site up to speed with web standards and offer more accessible content for the end user.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing.

By the way, if your company happens to be on this list, we’d love to offer you one free hour of consulting. Just give us a buzz.